Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Abu discovered a new feature of his car

The spiritual leader of a major militant group in Iraq, Tawhid and Jihad, has been killed in a U.S. airstrike and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday.

Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, 35, was killed when a missile hit the car he was traveling in on Friday in the west Baghdad suburb of Abu-Ghraib, said the clerics, who have close ties to the family. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

Al-Shami was a close aide to Tawhid and Jihad's leader, the Jordanian militant [they misspelled terrorist - ed.] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The al-Qaida-linked group is blamed for some of the biggest attacks in Iraq, such as the bombing of the U.N. headquarters last year, and the beheadings of foreign hostages. Al-Zarqawi is believed to have personally decapitated the American hostage Eugene Armstrong on Monday.

Al-Shami, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent who was also known as Omar Yousef Jumah, was believed to be the voice on several audio tapes that Tawhid and Jihad released via the Internet. In one such tape in August, a speaker identified as al-Shami said the militants planned to kill Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, soldiers and police officers.